Quote from: David R;232862Ah....the Return or should I say Revenge of Thematic....

Bingo.

I'll run through it very quickly since Stuart seems a bit lost.

Sett likes to focus on adventure. That means, front and center, you have political-strategic-tactical conflict. Ends and means may be questioned, but not "values". You do not ask if you want to rescue the princess, rather the premise of the game is "let's rescue the princess" so that we can then move out and have an adventure. It's like the head in the dungeoncrawl I posted recently--or more precisely, it's like the PCs' greed and the fact that their patron handed them a treasure map.

I posit that there's other stuff there, in fact you do not exclude the possibility of one day wondering if the princess really ought to be rescued, but it's not the immediate focus of the action.

The formulation of STORY NOW, particularly in the hands of poxy followers of the good Dr. Edwards, is focusing on those values and hitting them hard. Problem is, aside from the risk of jumping from plot point to plot point and ending up with a hollow resume of a story, the plot points themselves are horribly, horribly cliché when they're drawn from 1980's superhero comics, summer blockbusters, and geek operas.

Well Elliot, I'm sure you are aware I have "issues" with Sett's definition but I'll let them be for this thread. But I will say that this :

QuoteI posit that there's other stuff there, in fact you do not exclude the possibility of one day wondering if the princess really ought to be rescued, but it's not the immediate focus of the action.

[/I]
is very interesting and something I'll pick up on some other time.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;232596Actually, I've been out of university (I was a Philosophy, not an English major, never even took a course on the subject at the university level) and working for years now, and everyone still reads less than me. That's their moral failing though, not mine.

I think that everyone reading less then you is a pretty big assumption you're making.  For my part I am currently reading several books/ literature at the moment, it all depends on the kind of mood I happen to be in.  As for others in the world, I have had the privilege of knowing many individuals who are quite well versed in all types of literature and still enjoy a good movie or television program.  Variety is the spice of life, or so I have heard, and given different avenues of entertainment seems to add to one's character.  I have gamed with these individuals as well, and we have found ways of letting those avenues cultivate in different outcomes and scenarios during our games.  
Saying that everyone reads less is their moral failure is an unfair assessment as well.   Let's assume people actually have busy lives and can't always be sticking their nose into a book, or any other reading material at any moment.  I myself am a mother, full-time worker, student, wife and devoted family member.  Besides allowing myself to play an RPG game everyone once in a while, reading is my favorite pastime.  There is no moral failure simply because one can't keep up with you.

Quote from: Engine;232729I've thought a lot about it since you and I've discussed this, and I can totally see how what you're talking about could happen: the GM has this story in mind, and then sets out the initial premise for his players, and suddenly they start going in every which way, nowhere near the path he had in mind, and so he's got to shove them back on the path.

What the fuck?  You ruminated on something someone said on the internet and realized eventually they had a point?  What the fuck planet are you from, you freak!?!

I once came up with this brilliantly simple plot:  An evil sorceress who prophesies her own death at the hands of a particular person, and in the process of attempting to eliminate the threat to her own life, creates the very reality she fears.  The idea is simple: what happens when one person is so convinced that you -- who have no particular beef with this person -- is out to get you that they force you to confront them.  I'm fascinated by the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I kicked off this plot by having wanted posters start popping up.  One of the characters was traveling under a pseudonym, and the wanted posters claimed his pseudonym was wanted for the murder of his actual identity.  (I'm a Phillip K. Dick fan, so naturally the idea of being wanted fro killing yourself appeals to me greatly).

The player I picked out?  He bolted, ran from the party, wouldn't tell anyone what happened or where he was going.  So I ended up having to ditch the whole plotline and handwave away the wanted posters to get the player to come back to the party.  It was very annoying.

And sure, I could have told the player wanted I wanted to do, but then...what's the point?  There's no tension when everyone knows what's going on.

Quote from: droog;232835No, the plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet falls apart, but you now have an original story. Everybody wins! Unless what you wanted to do was run in lockstep through the plot of Hamlet.

Then you aren't really borrowing the plot from Hamlet, you're borrowing the premise.  And unless you get to decide what your players play for their characters, you're going to end up having to modify the premise quite a bit.

And at a certain point, you're so far removed from Hamlet, that claiming you're borrowing from Hamlet or that Hamlet informs your game in some way is, frankly, a bunch of pretentious horseshit.  Just because it's a revenge story with a ghost doesn't make it Hamlet.

Seriously man, I think if Ophelia doesn't end up drowning herself in a pool, then claiming your game has fuckall to do with Hamlet is just bullshit intended to make your game appear more literate than it is.

Quote from: Jackalope;232686But what if the player decides they don't want revenge?  What if they decide they weren't particularly attached to their father, didn't really want the throne, and are more than happy to let their uncle take it.  Then the whole thing falls apart.

This is why I don't get using plots like Hamlet with PCs in the major roles.  You have no control over what the characters decide to do, and a plot like Hamlet is driven almost entirely by the protagonists actions.

Of course. So it would only come about if the player said, "I am creating a character who has a strong sense of honour, in that medieval loyalty sense, and responsibility towards his family, but who is a bit indecisive." The GM could then respond by creating the situation, "your father dies and your mother marries his brother, you suspect your uncle may have killed him." Voila, you got Hamlet.

If the GM just springs the situation on random PCs, of course it won't work. The average PC would just walk over and stab the uncle straight up, then say, "Hail to the King, bitches!" As GM, you have to look at the traits the player gives their character, and make the complications of the campaign out of that. Of course you can ask the players to have certain traits in their characters, too, so there's a bit of back-and-forth in campaign and character design.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;232877I'll run through it very quickly since Stuart seems a bit lost.

I wasn't (it was a rhetorical question), but thanks for the recap.

Quote from: JackalopeThen you aren't really borrowing the plot from Hamlet, you're borrowing the premise.

Exactly.  And borrowing a premise has very little to do with what makes literature and the various performance arts distinct from one another.  I don't see how taking a premise from a book, play, tv show, movie, or even comic would be all that much different.

Edit:

Quote from: jibbajibba;232868I much prefer to base a game on the pulpy crappy fiction of Fiest or Gemmel and gain a lot more inspiration from watching an episode of BattleStar Galactica than from reading Chekov. If I want some Slavic misery I'll just talk to the wife.

QuoteI have to defend comics and TV. There is so much great TV and so many great comics. Yes Spiderman 214 might be shit (where he teams up with the sub-mariner to take on the Frightful 4 right?) but Moonshadow is just fantastic (would make a crap game though) and Gaiman is a genius in any genre.

I personally find it hard to apply much credibility to someone who complains about pretension and then cites Gaiman as a work of genius.

Quote from: Jackalope;232890Then you aren't really borrowing the plot from Hamlet, you're borrowing the premise.  And unless you get to decide what your players play for their characters, you're going to end up having to modify the premise quite a bit.

And at a certain point, you're so far removed from Hamlet, that claiming you're borrowing from Hamlet or that Hamlet informs your game in some way is, frankly, a bunch of pretentious horseshit.  Just because it's a revenge story with a ghost doesn't make it Hamlet.

Seriously man, I think if Ophelia doesn't end up drowning herself in a pool, then claiming your game has fuckall to do with Hamlet is just bullshit intended to make your game appear more literate than it is.

Fair enough, really. I borrow a premise or two here and there. I borrowed some of it from Hamlet, admitting as much isn't so much being pretentious as it is being honest. Revenge stories with ghosts in them were not my idea in the first place, obviously.

Quote from: Stuart;232895Exactly.  And borrowing a premise has very little to do with what makes literature and the various performance arts distinct from one another.  I don't see how taking a premise from a book, play, tv show, movie, or even comic would be all that much different.

It totally doesn't!

This is as viable a source of the premise of Hamlet as this.  Because as a GM, you have no control over what happens after the ghost tells Hamlet what the mission is.  In fact, the Simpsons version does a better job of introducing the ghost, since the play has the ghost beckon Hamlet away from his companions, and there's no way in hell any PC would fall for that.

Once given the misson, will the PC try to trick Claudius into a confession, and then murder him in vengeance?  That's the player's choice, and from that point on Hamlet has exactly as much to do with it as the player decides ("I'm gonna get my melancholy dane on!") and what the player knows about Hamlet.  The chances of a player stumbling across that particular plan (let alone the particular implementation of that particular plan) without knowing Hamlet and intentionally aping the actions of the titular melancholic dane.

So this idea that you need to read the classics to use classic premises?  BS.

and just to be clear-

Quote from: Aos;232314Psuedo, I've read tons of lit- including everything on your short list, but I'm sorry to admit that my gaming is more likely to be informed by  stuff like People of the Black Circle, Guyal of Sfere, Ill Met in Lankmahr and Jack Kirby comics than Gravaty's Rainbow.

I stole stuff for a Mage campaign from Gravity's Rainbow....(guess this makes me uberswine - one for the choice of game, the other for the book)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Jackalope;232890Then you aren't really borrowing the plot from Hamlet, you're borrowing the premise.  And unless you get to decide what your players play for their characters, you're going to end up having to modify the premise quite a bit.

To be precise, not the premise but the opening situation. And a jolly good opening situation it is.

You need to chill, young man. Throwing the word 'pretentious' into this is shooting your wad a bit early. I suggest you review what I've actually written.

Quote from: Jackalope;232886What the fuck?  You ruminated on something someone said on the internet and realized eventually they had a point?  What the fuck planet are you from, you freak!?!

I know, isn't it crazy? They're going to take my membership card, soon.

I once came up with this brilliantly simple plot....

So I ended up having to ditch the whole plotline and handwave away the wanted posters to get the player to come back to the party.  It was very annoying.

And sure, I could have told the player wanted I wanted to do, but then...what's the point?  There's no tension when everyone knows what's going on.[/QUOTE]
That does sound like an excellent plot, and a great example of the form. I can't speak to what might have been done to prevent its unraveling - I don't know your group, or even really you - but I can say this happens to us all the time. I had a metaplot for every character in my last Earthdawn game, and all but one of them died in the second adventure. Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? And of course, I just let the threads fall; part of "realistic" roleplaying is that sometimes in real life, stories end in the middle, and it's sad.

Quote from: Settembrini;232083Collecting is good. Only collectors can become great DMs...If I can choose between a DM that owns EVERYTHING from ONE game line and nothing else, or a DM that has 300 different HSV-wonderbooks and written 400 reviews on RPG.Net, I´ll go to the first guy.

Yes, I know this was covered, but if I hadn't spoiled it by seeing the username, I was going to give huge props to the guy that wrote this. It reads like a perfect parody, illustrating the original poster's premise extremely well. (Still, knowing that it wasn't written tongue-in-cheek actually makes it even funnier.)

As to the more recent discussion: If the literature you're reading or the TV shows/movies you're watching are less useful as idea fodder than your average RPG book, then you need to find better literature/TV/movies to watch. I'll say that GURPS sourcebooks are generally an exception, because they're distillations of ideas and material and are pretty fucking solid.